another orphan
Arnold M. Zwicky
zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Sun Sep 10 17:10:33 UTC 2006
On Sep 10, 2006, at 6:17 AM, Larry Horn wrote:
> At 1:28 AM -0400 9/10/06, Wilson Gray wrote:
>> And there are originally-local orphans, such as UCLA and SC.
>
> Do these really count as orphans? They do still unpack in the
> original ways, after all.
they are not orphans. they're just very widely used abbreviations,
appreciated as such by those who use them, and not disavowed by the
institutions in question.
>
>> The use
>> of "SC" instead of "USC" for the University of Southern California
>> may
>> be peculiar to BE.
>
> From my L.A. days, I'm pretty sure no such restriction exists. "He
> goes to SC", as I recall, was (and I assume still is, in L.A.) pretty
> standard usage.
in my experience, yes.
> Note that this can only standard for the *University
> of* Southern California; you never (I venture to guess) get "SC" to
> refer to "southern California" tout court ("The Democrats held the
> northern part of the state, but SC went Republican"--naaah).
right. that would be SoCal, but never SC.
>> I almost cried when I discovered that the A&P was originally the
>> "Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company."
ah, a bit of lost poetry. but the "Tea" part is really way too
limiting.
arnold, in NoCal (a.k.a. NorCal)
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list